Day 323

We are moving pretty quickly through Saul’s (Paul’s) story. Yesterday, we read of how he approved Stephen’s death; today, it is how he had an encounter with God, started preaching salvation, and then the plan to kill him. He, who was the prosecutor, has now become the prosecuted.

Unlike the disciples, who were primarily ordinary men whom Jesus asked to follow him, Paul had a completely different background. Paul was persecuting, signing off on killing believers; he seemed to have a connection with those who were high up. It is no wonder the believers were sceptical of his conversion. While their scepticism is understandable, this is why people are generally scared to change their views on something they felt strongly about before — the fear of being rejected or shamed for their past opinions/actions. We shouldn’t let the fear of such keep us from acknowledging the mistakes in anything we have done in the past and courageously move us to a new view; it is growth and learning.

Paul’s background, as we see, can also minister to different sets of people. Sometimes we don’t have an experience and feel no one can benefit from our testimony, or feel we don’t have a great story, but that’s not true. We always have something within us that can encourage or minister to people in the category of life we are in, or we once were in — like Peter said when he went to minister to Cornelius and his family (also in today’s reading), Surely, God has no favourites. That is, God can use or bless anyone irrespective of their background. We also saw that again and again in the old testament.